


fade into you

by myfavouritesweater



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: F/M, but its not particularly canon, fluff and feelings basically, set just after "the gang misses the boat" and spans two years or so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 08:57:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11010165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myfavouritesweater/pseuds/myfavouritesweater
Summary: She opened floodgates, it would seem, by sleeping with Charlie. She’s been thrown headfirst into a world she has no control over, a world where a small man with cat food caked under his nails shows up at her door at 3am, and she lets him in willingly.





	fade into you

One night, whilst they’re sharing a rare cigarette on the roof of her building, Charlie suggests they run away. It's been two months since she fucked him on her couch. It was the best decision she ever made.

“We have no money, Charlie,” She laughs, blowing smoke up into the air. Charlie shakes his head.

“We don’t need money,” He scoffs. “We just need a car and some clothes.”

He says it so simply, voice so full of self-assuredness and optimism, that it makes Dee’s heart ache. He’s not stupid; far from it, despite what people would like to think. Sometimes he says things that shock Dee, things she would never even think of herself. He's brimming with useless wisdom, that boy.  
  
But then sometimes, he says things like this, and she’s reminded that, above everything else, he’s blindly, hopelessly naive.  
  
“It’s not that easy,” She says softly, passing the cigarette to him. She still shivers when their fingers brush, after all this time.  
  
It's been three months since she fucked him on her couch. She still thinks it was the best decision she ever made.  
  
They finish their smoke in silence, looking out over the lights of the neighborhood. Sometimes, when she’s drunk, she swears she can see the bar from here. She knows she’s wrong, but it makes her feel less small. It makes her feel connected to the gang, even when they’re not together.  
  
Even when she fears they don’t love her as much as she loves them.  
  
She follows Charlie back down the stairs when it starts getting too cold, when even his arm slung over her shoulder isn’t enough anymore. He offers her his jacket, obviously wanting to stretch out their time together, but she turns him down. It’s getting late anyway.  
  
And then they have their moment, like every night, where they dance around each other, both hoping the other will suggest Charlie stay the night. They’ve gone through all the excuses at this point (it’s too late, they’re both super tired, Charlie forgot his key), and yet they still need one to stay together.  
  
She opened floodgates, it would seem, by sleeping with Charlie. She’s been thrown headfirst into a world she has no control over, a world where a small man with cat food caked under his nails shows up at her door at 3am, and she lets him in willingly.  
  
Mac and Dennis don’t know about these nights, and Dee doesn’t ever want them to find out. Not because she’s embarrassed to be sleeping with Charlie, no, but because she doesn’t want them to tease him out of coming to see her. The relationship she has with Charlie, behind closed doors and away from the bar, is the only thing that keeps her going sometimes.  
  
So she let’s Charlie run his spiel about Frank having some hooker staying the night, part of one of his schemes, and happily invites him into bed with her.  
  
They don’t always fuck. In fact, more often than not, they just talk until they fall asleep, face to face on their pillows. Sometimes, she takes Charlie’s hand, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles until she’s out. Sometimes, he strokes her hair.  
  
(Sometimes, and usually when they’re both wasted, they play nightcrawlers, though Dee would never admit to it.)  
  
And when she wakes up at 4am, blind with panic, she finds him beside her, all elbows and soft hair and gentle breaths, and she feels a little safer.  
  
She scolds herself for that. What’s a man in a worn, discarded maternity T-Shirt of hers going to do?  
  
Save her?  
  
\---  
  
By the time she’s forty, she’s still working in her brother’s shitty bar, she still hasn’t become an actress, and she’s still fooling herself that one day, she’ll move on from Charlie, and start a life with someone a little more -  
  
Well, that’s it. She used to be able to think of an endless string of qualities, things her ideal man should have. They were always things Charlie distinctly didn’t have, the exact opposite of the man she’d reluctantly spent half her life with.  
  
But these days, the lines blur. In fact, some days, the lines go hand in hand. She feels like she's trying so hard, _all _the time, to impress everyone she meets, to win the approval of her piece of shit brother, to prove to herself that she's worth something.__  
  
But she never has to try with Charlie, and that's all she really wants.  
  
“We could get married,” She slurs, one day, blind drunk. Charlie is walking her home, though he’s only marginally more sober than she is.  
  
“You don’t want to marry me, Dee,” He laughs. The grip around her waist tightens.  
  
“I’m forty. Might not get many more chances.”  
  
“So I’m your back-up plan?” He says. Dee may be shitfaced, but she can hear the hurt in his voice. She frowns.  
  
“Back-up plan?” She repeats. “Charlie, people don’t date their back up plan for two years.”  
  
“We’re dating?”  
  
She doesn't answer.  
  
By the time Charlie unlocks her front door and hauls her inside, there isn't even any dancing around the sleeping situation. He leaves her in the kitchen, fumbling over the sink with a plastic cup, and climbs into his side of the bed, already half asleep by the time she stumbles in.  
  
“You sleepin’, Charlie?”  
  
She can't remember the last time he slept at his own apartment. She doesn't want to.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
She slides in next to him and pulls the sheets up to her chin. When she turns to the other side, he's already looking at her, face soft.  
  
“Sweet Dee,” He says, barely a whisper, smile on his face. He hasn't called her that for years. None of them have.  
  
She looks at him, really looks at him, and she feels so young and so old all at once. They've got 25 years on each other, and Charlie still looks the same. She knows her looks are fading. She's known all along, really, that she was never that pretty in the first place, else her Mom would have loved her more.  
  
Charlie tells her she's pretty, sometimes, and she smiles, even if he is lying.  
  
Charlie is her favourite person in the world.  
  
“I love you, Charlie,” She says. She's not going to remember this in the morning. Maybe Charlie won't, either.  
  
“I love you, too.”  
  
\---

____

Two weeks later, they’re opening up the bar together, just the two of them.  
  
Charlie's stood behind Dee when Mac and Dennis burst into the bar, two hours early for their shifts. Charlie's arms are looped loosely around her waist, chin hooked over her shoulder as she wipes down the surfaces. She's telling him about a dream she had last night. Her voice dies when she spots her brother.  
  
Charlie pulls away from her, his arms audibly dropping to his sides. She feels naked without him, exposed.  
  
“Looking pretty cosy there, you guys,” Dennis teases. His eyes are already bright with mirth.  
  
Charlie laughs awkwardly. Dee stays silent.  
  
“What the hell was that?” Mac says. He's directing his question at Charlie, voice disappointed, like he's just been caught drinking paint again.  
  
Charlie doesn't answer him. He splutters, like he wants to say something, rolls his eyes and huffs out a little laugh. He does it when he's embarrassed, when he doesn't want to answer a question. It frustrates Dee to no end that he's so easy to read, and yet it's one of the things she loves most about him.  
  
“Dude!” Mac demands.  
  
Charlie stops and shares a nervous glance with Dee. Standing there, raw desperation etched into his face, he looks about 25 years old. Dee looks away.  
  
“What is going on here?” Dennis says, but Mac’s staring at them, open mouthed. Dee can practically see the wheels turning in his head, can see everything slotting into place.  
  
"None of your goddamn business, Mac," She snaps, but it's too late.  
  
“Oh my god,” Mac says, pointing at Charlie. “You’re banging Dee!”  
  
Charlie looks at the floor and shrugs.  
  
“No way, dude!” Dennis yells, half laughing, like he wasn't just the most confused person in the room. He starts to point, too, moving to stand next to Mac, mirror image of one another. “God, what is wrong with you?”  
  
“That’s so gross, Charlie!”  
  
“And you,” Dennis says, wheeling around to face her. His eyes are alight, beneath his knitted brows. “Really, Deandra? Charlie?”  
  
“Now that’s scraping the bottom of the barrel,” Mac interjects.  
  
“He doesn’t brush his teeth, for Christ’s sake!”  
  
Dee sits still on her stool as it all collapses around her, this quietly preserved happiness she’d spent so long cultivating dissolving in front of her eyes. Mac and Dennis’ words rain down on her numbly, blurring into one jarring voice, two heads erupting from the same monstrous body, and she doesn’t even feel angry.  
  
It’s something akin to relief that washes over her, like she’s finally putting down a heavy box she’s been forced to carry for who knows how long. All this time, she’s been so afraid, but of what? Of her brother? Of his best friend? What did she think was going to happen?  
  
Above the chaos, above all the noise, Charlie looks over to her, and smiles.  
  
Charlie is always going to be Charlie, no matter how much she tries to change his ways. Charlie forgets to take showers for days on end. Charlie traipses dirt into her living room every week, despite being told not to. Charlie is ignorant. Charlie is stubborn.  
  
And yet.

**Author's Note:**

> just a quick note to say that dee's opinions on her appearance are purely fictional and i do not agree with them! kaitlin has always been and still is very beautiful, i just wanted to express some of her insecurities in this fic
> 
> hope u enjoyed it!


End file.
